Simple Things
by enigma731
Summary: The news sits innocuously atop the day's completed reports, two sheets of paper declaring that his world is already shifting on its foundations. Post-finale closure.
1. Chapter 1

TITLE: Simple Things (1/3)

AUTHOR: enigma731

PAIRING: Chase/Cameron

RATING: T

SUMMARY: The news sits innocuously atop the day's completed reports, two sheets of paper declaring that his world is already shifting on its foundations. Post-finale closure.

NOTES: Welcome to my post-finale head canon. You're welcome to join me if you'd like to live here. ;) I promise I won't make you wait too long for the other two parts. I've been writing this fic in bits and pieces since May.

* * *

The day after the funeral, it rains.

Chase stands inside the empty Diagnostics office for a while, listening to the sound of the big, late-spring drops hitting the glass. It is the first time in many months that his life has slowed enough to allow awareness of something so simple, and yet he thinks that everything is about to accelerate once more, if he allows it. Time seems suspended in this moment, his life poised at the crest of a wave, prepared to ride it downward.

This office has been his sanctuary countless times before, home, confessional, and prison cell all rolled into one. Now it simply feels too large, conspicuous in its emptiness, as though his own life is yet too small to fill the enormous gaps left behind by House.

After awhile, he finds his way up to the roof, sitting on the wall, and inhaling the scent of wet earth as the drops gradually soak the wilting fabric of his ill-fitting dress shirt and slacks. Watching dirty water run down through the gutters, he allows his mind to wander through a decade in this place, all the countless ghosts and regrets.

He is uncertain how much time has passed when Cameron sits down beside him holding a large black umbrella over their heads. For a long moment she is silent, as though she might be nothing more than a memory. A phantom.

"I hear you're the new House," she says at last, her gaze on the depths of a puddle at their feet.

"Foreman wants me to be," says Chase. The prospect still seems impossible to truly consider, as though the past week has sent his whole world reeling, tipped off its axis by the House-shaped hole at the center of it all.

"Does that mean you don't want to be?" asks Cameron.

"I thought you'd left already," says Chase instead.

"Tonight," she says simply. "I wanted to talk to you first."

"What is there to say?"

"Thank you," she answers quietly. "For the card. And the duck. Sarah sleeps with it every night."

"I'm glad she likes it," says Chase. He doesn't tell her that the stuffed animal is one he'd first seen years ago, and fantasized about buying for their own future child. Those thoughts are pointless now.

Cameron looks at him in silence, and for one fleeting instant, it seems as though she might sense his guilty thoughts, might even share them. As though the rain, with its new-earth smell might somehow be capable of melting away all of the distance of the lost years, the regret. The delicate gold band on her finger. All of it falling away into possibility, blinding as the sunlight which paints the underbellies of the clouds molten silver. And then the moment passes, and is gone.

"I should go," Cameron says quietly, three simple words triggering a deluge of memories: the strangely intimate darkness of the clinic, the cold solidness of the exam table against his back, his fingers in her hair. The sadness in her smile tells him she is remembering too. And suddenly he is struck by the finality of it, this realization that sharing an unspoken memory is now the closest they will ever get. There is nothing to bring her back now, not even death.

Chase nods once, then hesitates. "Why did you come back? For the funeral, I mean. You and House—didn't exactly part on the greatest of terms."

Cameron shrugs. "It's House."

Her answer stings more than it ought to; there is no reason for Chase to believe that she would come back for _him_, and yet for just an instant, he thinks there was something beneath the surface.

"Take the job," says Cameron, then gets to her feet.

Chase watches raindrops scar the surface of a puddle, and thinks that even if he takes over the department, it will not make him House. It will not make him matter.

"Go be happy," says Chase, and tries to convince himself that what he really means is _goodbye_.

* * *

Foreman leaves the papers on Chase's desk at the end of an uncharacteristically slow day at the hospital. Later, he will wonder whether the lack of referrals was intentional, a carefully calculated gesture to ensure that his team will already be gone for the day, that he will have no excuses, nothing else in which to bury himself.

The news sits innocuously atop the day's completed reports, two sheets of paper declaring that his world is already shifting on its foundations. Chase pulls out the desk chair which still feels just a bit stolen and sits heavily in it, running his fingers over the thin sheets, as though they might disintegrate into fantasy in the dim lamp light. The details are minimal: one email and one airport itinerary.

It has been three months since he spoke to Cameron last, and he wonders how quickly things have fallen apart for her this time: whether it has been quick once more, a decisive collapse, foundations giving way on a moment's notice. Or whether, perhaps, the cracks might have formed more slowly this time, whether the doubts might already have been brewing in her mind when she'd come to the funeral, if their fleeting conversation had been intended as more—a test, a sign.

Chase runs his fingers over the smooth face of the paper, and pictures her neat signature, already etched in the permanence of ink, waiting for his own to complete their separation. Closing his eyes, he wonders whether the loops of her name looked the same this time, whether anything has changed.

The first thing he feels is instinctive bitterness, almost comforting in its familiarity. But this time it does not last, shifting like shadow into tentative hope, the sort of creeping, persistent possibility that steals his breath and tugs silently at his core. He _wants_ this, he realizes, desperately.

Getting to his feet, Chase folds the pages into a tiny square and slides them into his pocket to rest against the scar that marks his heart.

* * *

Cameron looks like a ghost walking out of the nearly-deserted terminal, pale in the late-night fluorescent lighting, her hair framing her face and nearly obscuring the baby sleeping fitfully against her shoulder. She obviously is not expecting to meet anyone here, and for one breathless moment, Chase wonders what he will do if she does not notice him, if he might simply allow himself to disappear from her world once and for all.

But she does see him, almost immediately, altering her path to meet him where he is standing, in a corner near the baggage claim.

"Foreman told you," she says, coming to a stop in front of him. The baby is still asleep on her shoulder, tiny fingers wrapped around the collar of her shirt.

Chase is struck instantly by the intimacy of this moment, the terrible vulnerability of meeting her here, at this point on the path of her life. He wonders what it was like for her, getting off the plane in Chicago three years ago, whether there was anyone to meet her then.

"He made sure I knew," says Chase, though the sound of his own voice feels foreign in his ears, detached from the reality of standing here with her now, closer than he has ever expected to be again. He feels awash in adrenaline, surprised by how desperately he wants to reconnect with her, after three years trying to convince himself that his life has moved on. "I'm sorry if that's not what you wanted. It's just—it's late, and it's raining, and I thought—I've got a spare room, if you want it."

Surprise is reflected in the changing tension of her body, though it does not show on her face. She does not answer immediately.

"I know it's selfish," says Chase, "but I'm glad you're moving back. And I've got no expectations. I just want to help, if you'll let me." For the space of one breathless instant he is certain that this is all a mistake, that he has been right all along in keeping from her his true emotions.

But then Cameron smiles faintly, stepping forward to catch him in a one-armed hug. "Thank you," she whispers against his ear.

* * *

Chase's new apartment feels much too large and quiet, as though, even after two years, he has not allowed his life to fill the totality of its space. Looking at the bare walls of the guest room, Cameron cannot help comparing it to his first apartment in Princeton, where she'd stayed countless nights before they'd gotten the condo. It hadn't felt like a real home either, but at least it had suited all the many eccentricities she'd come to love about Chase. This place feels conspicuously temporary, and she wonders why. He's seemed perfectly happy, all things considered, at least in the brief contact they've had. But she is certain that he must think the same of her life, a pretty, insubstantial lie which has left her standing here now, with a suitcase full of regrets.

It's late by the time she's gotten Sarah settled for the night, but she is unsurprised to find Chase in the living room, a dismal news report on the television and a medical journal splayed open on his lap.

"Research?" she asks, moving to sit beside him. It's surreal being here with him now, and yet there is an inexplicable sense of safety in his presence. He ought to be angry at her, perhaps ought to consider this due penance on her part, and yet even that would seem a familiar relief in the mess that her life's become.

Chase shrugs, folds down the corner of the page, and tosses the journal aside, turning to face her. "Did you ever think that you could practice for an entire lifetime, and still never be as good as House?"

"No," says Cameron. "But I never tried to be him, either."

"Did you need something?" he asks, shifting quickly into concern.

"No," she repeats, wondering suddenly whether she ought to be allowing him space instead. "I just—wasn't ready to sleep yet. But I can leave you alone if you have work to do."

"Don't," says Chase, before she can get to her feet. "I'm tired of working."

For a moment they are both silent, the rain pounding on the roof overhead, the weight of the past three years hanging in the air between them.

"I'm sorry I wasn't here when you were in the hospital," says Cameron. She hadn't brought it up when she'd come for the funeral, though she'd been acutely aware of the slight shifts in his movements, the way he'd tried to hide the pain after sitting in a hard chair at the memorial service. It had seemed too dangerous then.

"I didn't want you to be here," says Chase, then softens. "I mean—you were married. You'd just had a baby. It wouldn't have been fair."

"Foreman told me that you asked him not to call," Cameron admits. She hadn't even sent a card.

"It doesn't matter," says Chase. "I'm fine now."

Cameron decides immediately that she does not believe him, but says nothing. That is not her place anymore; the entire world feels unfamiliar to her right now, upside down. On the television, footage plays of a shooting at a shopping mall, and she wonders, not for the first time, what it would be like for disaster to strike in this moment of quiet.

"I saw the wedding photos you sent Foreman," says Chase, a look on his face that she cannot quite read. "You and Steve looked happy. Whatever happened—I'm sorry."

"He had an affair," says Cameron, bluntly. "It started a few months ago and I knew, but—when I finally confronted him, he said I gave him no choice." She isn't sure why she is telling him this now, whether it is a real attempt at honestly, or merely a desperate ploy to convince him that she might yet be capable of real connection, that the ruin of her relationship is not solely her fault this time. And she has not even told him the worst, that she was willing to stick it out until he'd called their daughter a mistake, had implied that it would have been better had she not chosen to view her pregnancy as the miracle it was.

"I'm sorry," Chase repeats quietly. "I did want you to be happy."

"Why?" It's an impertinent question, and yet nothing else feels right in this moment. "I mean, you have every right to be angry at me."

"I'm not angry," says Chase, getting to his feet abruptly. "I got something for you."

Cameron glances around the room again as he disappears into the kitchen, searching for clues to the past three years of his life. When Chase returns, he is carrying a gallon of ice cream and a spoon, offering it to her tentatively.

"Seriously?" Cameron feels an instant rush of adrenaline at the simplicity of the gesture. For the first time, the enormity of everything that's happened seems to settle on her shoulders.

"Yes," says Chase, though he still looks uncertain. "I know it's ridiculous. But I thought it might help."

For a moment, Cameron allows herself to smile, comforted by the fact that for the many changes all around her, this part of him is still so very much the same. "Share it with me."

* * *

Cameron goes silent for a full week after finding an apartment. Chase has not been so aware of the time in weeks, has become accustomed to losing himself in work, sometimes spending days on a case without leaving the hospital.

But now he is acutely aware of the hours ticking by, the seasons beginning to change as the first cold snap of fall signals an end to the oppressive heat that's seemed to dull the air in Princeton all summer. He wonders whether he's said something wrong, offered too much too fast. Happiness has always seemed elusive between them, slipping through his grasp the harder he's tried to hold firm to it. Chase thinks that perhaps she is questioning just as much, that perhaps she is waiting for him to call. But he has risked too much already, wonders now whether pursuing her has always been his mistake, whether she has ever truly wanted to be with him at all.

On the second weekend since she returned to Princeton, Cameron calls him at last, leaving a message while he is at work. Her invitation is simple enough, and yet he spends the entire night second guessing himself.

When Chase arrives he brings a pizza along, because it feels like a safe excuse. He finds himself unready, still, to admit fully that he wants to be a part of her new beginning here.

Cameron's apartment is in the same complex where she'd lived after coming to work for House the first time, and Chase wonders whether it is a coincidence, whether she's actually looked anywhere else. She is smiling when she opens the door, but her body is taut with palpable anxiety.

"I wasn't sure you were coming," she says quietly. "You never returned my call."

"I'm sorry," says Chase, realizing only now that he should have called, instead of simply trying to guess her intentions as he has so many times before. "But I brought pizza."

Cameron takes the box from him, stepping back to usher him inside.

* * *

It feels oddly intimate, being in her apartment, surrounded by boxes. So many of her things are the same; Chase finds himself surrounded by ghosts of a previous life.

After dinner he sits on the floor across from her, handing her things to place on the heavy shelves that wrap around the tiny space. Sarah is asleep in the other room, though Chase finds himself acutely aware of her presence, a constant reminder of the dreams he's had and lost for himself.

Most of the books she's brought with her are textbooks and journals, although there's an entire box of children's books as well, many of which are still years beyond Sarah's abilities. Chase immediately notices the absence of the large collection of paperback romance novels she'd once kept shoved against the bottom shelf, all but obscured by overflow from the other categories. He wonders for a moment what she's done with them, and why.

"When did you move out of the condo?" she asks, surprising him.

"A few months after you brought the divorce papers," says Chase. He leaves unspoken the admission that he'd waited that long, until he was certain that she wouldn't be coming back, wouldn't be changing her mind. All the while holding onto anger, onto blame, clinging to all the many reasons why it never would have worked.

"I'm sorry," Cameron says after a moment. The look in her eyes is very far off, as though she might be staring into the depths of regret. "It's none of my business. I shouldn't have asked."

"It's okay," Chase answers quickly, surprising himself. It is the first time he's spoken these things aloud, shared them with anyone. "I want to know about your life too."

"I moved back in with my parents," says Cameron, decisively, as though this admission is a calculated risk. "Until I got pregnant."

"You didn't have your own place until then?" asks Chase, handing her a stack of colorful picture books, grateful for the distraction. That she would allow herself to remain so dependent for so long seems contrary to everything he has ever known about her.

"I never had my own place," she answers, flipping through the stack of books absently, before deciding on an arrangement. "I lived with my parents, and then when I found out I was pregnant, I moved in with Steve."

"That just—doesn't sound like the you I know," says Chase, gently. All this time, he's been picturing her life as a strategic success, the polar opposite of the mess he's found himself acting out over and over again.

"I wasn't—exactly trying to get pregnant." Cameron puts the books down and pulls her knees up to her chest, looking suddenly very young. "I wasn't in a good place when I moved. Obviously. Getting pregnant was the one amazing thing that came out of a hell of a lot of stupid decisions."


	2. Chapter 2

TITLE: Simple Things (2/3)

AUTHOR: enigma731

PAIRING: Chase/Cameron

RATING: T

SUMMARY: The news sits innocuously atop the day's completed reports, two sheets of paper declaring that his world is already shifting on its foundations. Post-finale closure.

* * *

It's decidedly odd, being in the hospital and not seeing House or Chase.

On her first day back, Cameron tells herself that Diagnostics is off limits. It's been hard enough, reconciling her decision to move back to Princeton with her desire for a new beginning. If she's honest with herself, what she really wants is the impossibility of a second chance. Not a fresh start at all, but the familiar quiet comfort of her marriage to Chase, when things were good. She'd tried to find it with Steve, tried to convince herself that she could be happy with his quiet devotion, the promised safety in the practicality of their early relationship. But she hadn't been able to live in the present, to give up grieving her past losses.

"This is your office," says Foreman, unlocking the door and then handing her the freshly-cut key. "You'll teach one course at the university and have forty percent protected research time, like we discussed."

Cameron takes a breath, looking around the space. It's a larger office than she's ever had before, with an enormous hard oak desk. The walls are painted a pale blue, and bare, practically beckoning her to make this space her own.

"Why me?" asks Cameron, turning back to Foreman. "You can't really expect me to believe that I was the best candidate for this job. I didn't even apply."

Foreman shrugs. "You didn't have to. I needed a new head of Immunology, and I know how good you are. Although I have to admit, I was surprised you didn't want the ER position instead."

"I loved emergency medicine," Cameron answers, absently. "But I love my daughter more. Working in the ER didn't exactly give me much time to be a parent."

Foreman nods, once. "I'll let you get settled, then. Let me know if I can buy you lunch later."

* * *

The first thing Chase realizes about running Diagnostics is how very decisive House has always been when choosing which cases to take. Even with him gone, the department has a reputation, and the referrals pour in at an overwhelming rate.

For the first time, Chase gets every case on his desk, has the task of reading and prioritizing all of them. For the first time, he finds himself doubting the decisions they have all made for the past ten years. Sometimes it feels as though he is being asked to determine who has a chance at life and who does not, who will recover and whose life will be forever changed. Some of them are easy to refer, but there are always too many for his team to take, even when working two or three simultaneously.

Sometimes, when Park and Adams have gone home, when the hospital has grown dark and hushed with the late hour, Chase sits in his office and pores over the backlog of files, hoping a miraculous answer will come to him.

Sometimes, late at night, he feels as though he is trying to summon House's ghost.

The pain returns with the first truly cold night, when he's been at the hospital for nearly two full days, trying to stop a little girl from inexplicably losing her vision. He's only felt slight twinges, and the occasional moment of muscle weakness since completing rehab, but the instant it happens, he knows exactly what it is. The spasm hits as he's getting to his feet for another cup of coffee, and it knocks him to his knees. The pain is intense and burning, as though the muscles in his thigh have become a writhing mass of snakes, fighting to break through his skin. The agony is so intense that it turns his stomach, and for what seems like an eternity, he does not breathe.

And then the pain begins to fade, much more slowly than it's begun, until it's quieted to a dull ache, leaving him drained and shaking. For a moment he is grateful that his team is not here to see, although this thought is followed by the fear of a recurrence, under less private circumstances.

When Chase wakes the next morning, the pain is still there, a bone-deep ache which makes him wonder for a moment whether he might truly be haunted by House's legacy.

* * *

"I'm worried about Chase," says Foreman, bluntly, on their second weekly lunch meeting.

Cameron frowns, slightly taken aback. "Why?"

"He's obsessing." Foreman stabs a piece of chicken with his fork, looks at it clinically, and then puts it back down.

"Isn't that what you wanted?" She has only seen Chase by moments since returning to work, in the lab, once, and occasionally in the locker room. It feels as though they are in limbo, waiting to see whether they will be thrown together once more by circumstance.

"I wanted him to work hard," says Foreman. "I didn't want him working himself into the ground. I was hoping he'd be less dysfunctional than House."

"Seriously?" Cameron folds her hands on the table top, remembering the conversation they'd had the day after the funeral, when it had taken all of her resolve just to walk away. "You're asking him to do the impossible. House left a _huge_ position to fill. No matter how good Chase is, it's always going to be a terrible comparison. And he _cares_. He cares about everything. He can't just finish a case and go play videogames."

For a moment she is silent, surprised at herself, at the fierce protectiveness she still feels for Chase. She has scarcely seen him since returning to Princeton, and yet the possibility alone is an indescribably immense comfort.

"Did you hire me back for Chase?" asks Cameron, when Foreman remains silent, and suddenly all of the pieces fall into place.

"He needs someone to keep him grounded," says Foreman, skirting the question.

"I didn't come back to make him happy," says Cameron, though she only half believes herself.

"I know," says Foreman, standing up with his tray. "But I also know you've never been good at staying uninvolved."

* * *

"Foreman thinks you need me to keep you sane," says Cameron, unceremoniously.

Chase is hunched over his desk, open files strewn around so that it looks like there's been a small explosion. Outside, the sun is setting, the sky tinged pink and orange with cold. He looks up at her after a moment as though he has only just noticed her presence, and the shadows under his eyes tell her that Foreman's fears are well-founded.

"He told you that?" Chase sounds alarmed.

"Yes." Cameron has waited a week to approach him, forcing herself to think over Foreman's warning, silently observing from afar. Tonight she is feeling reckless, tired of this cautious ambiguity between them. For the first time, she realizes that she wants the decision to be clear, to either be in his life again or put their past out of her mind entirely.

"I'm—sorry," stammers Chase. "That can't be what you wanted, coming back here. Not after everything."

"I agree with him," says Cameron, ignoring his apology. The chair that faces his desk is covered in another stack of files, and she moves them to the floor before sitting down. "When was the last time you slept at home?"

Chase stares at her for a moment in silence, then shrugs.

"I brought you dinner," she offers, more gently, handing him the takeout bag.

"Grilled cheese?" he asks, glancing inside. She knows it has always been his comfort food from the hospital cafeteria, and for an instant Chase looks as though he might simply break down, exhaustion and anxiety wearing dangerously through his façade of steadfast professionalism.

"Thank you," he says instead, pulling out a potato chip and eating it.

"Where's your team?" asks Cameron, though she's watched them leave the hospital for the day before coming here.

"They went home," says Chase, a touch of bitterness edging into his voice. "Park and Adams have decided they don't work overtime, now that House is gone. Guess I don't intimidate them enough."

"Or you're working too many hours yourself," she admonishes, lightly. "Come on. You know it's serious when Foreman thinks you're overdoing it with work."

"And what am I supposed to do?" asks Chase, slamming his palm against the surface of his desk, making her jump. "I am _not_ House, and sooner or later, the rest of the world's gonna figure that out. We've lost two patients this week alone. We're supposed to present one of the cases at the M and M tomorrow, but I can't even _think_ about that until I figure out what the hell to do with the three new referrals we got while I was talking to the family tonight. They all expect me to be some kind of miracle worker, and I can't—"

"Hey," Cameron interrupts, reaching out and laying a hand over his. "The difference between you and House is that you care about the people in those files. That is making you do more than House ever did, but it's also going to make you insane, if you let it."

Chase takes a breath, still visibly upset. "So what am I supposed to do, stop caring?"

"No," she answers, stubbornly lacing their fingers as he tries to pull his hand away. "But you can't be responsible for everything, either. Talk to your team, talk to Foreman. Talk to me. Even House didn't really do it all alone."

Chase regards her for a moment, warily. "Why are you doing this, Allison? You wanted it to be a new start here—I've been trying to give you that."

"We always kept each other sane, when we worked for House," she answers, swallowing the last traces of doubt. "And I missed you too."

Chase is silent for another long moment, struggling visibly with this decision. Then, slowly, he gathers up the files and pushes them toward her, across the desk.

"The new referrals," he explains quietly. "Forty year old woman, sudden loss of ability to speak. No apparent cause on brain MRI. Eighteen month old with an inoperable brain tumor. They want a third opinion from us. And a little girl experiencing recurrent anaphylaxis, with no apparent cause or pattern."

"Take the older woman," says Cameron, glancing through the pages. "But not until tomorrow morning. Refer the parents of the eighteen month old to oncology. And a grief counselor. They're looking for you to perform a miracle, but they already have their answer."

"And the little girl?" asks Chase, taking the other files back from her.

"Give me that one," says Cameron, feeling a hint of excitement at the possibility of a complex case. "It should have been mine in the first place."

"All right," says Chase, slowly, getting to his feet to retrieve the final chart.

Cameron follows, placing herself between him and the desk, lifting his coat from the back of his chair. "And now, let me walk you out before you make yourself sick."

For the first time, Chase does not protest, surprising her.

"Thank you," he says simply, instead.

* * *

"Are you getting the usual?" asks Cameron, takeout menu spread across the coffee table in front of her. "Or have your Chinese food preferences changed since I last had dinner with you?"

"What?" asks Chase. He's grown distracted by the photographs now perched atop her television stand, of Sarah in the hospital, surrounded by family. For the first time he is struck by how Cameron's parents have aged, how he had envisioned himself as a part of these pictures.

"I'm ordering dinner," she answers, patiently. "Do you want orange chicken, or something else?"

"The chicken's fine," says Chase. It feels decidedly odd to him, realizing that she remembers something as trivial as his dinner preferences. When he really thinks about it, three years is not that long to be apart. And yet he has spent every day of it trying to convince himself that she must have wanted to forget, must have spent the time trying to erase their life together from her mind. Now it feels like a constant shock, discovering her willingness to remember.

"How was work?" asks Cameron, drawing him back into the present as she hangs up the phone.

"Fine," says Chase, avoiding her gaze. In truth he feels selfish for being here instead of taking another case, unable to resist her offer of dinner. It's been nearly a week since the first time she dragged him away from his office with the threat of Foreman's warning. He has not approached her since then, though her offer to talk has been ever-present in the back of his mind, constant now as the gnawing pain in his lower back. The thought of truly confiding in her now is desperately tempting, and yet it still seems too much to ask of her, too much of a burden.

"Robert." Cameron gets to her feet, setting the takeout menu on the coffee table and moving to stand in front of him. "Please talk to me."

"Why?" asks Chase, doubt and exhaustion flaring into familiar bitterness. "Why do you care how I'm doing? Why does it matter to you if I'm working too hard, if I make myself burn out? I'm not your problem. I don't _want_ to be your problem anymore."

"Because I _care_ about you," she answers, and the steely edge of resolve in her voice takes him by surprise. "I know I don't have any right to expect you to trust me. But you need to trust someone."

"I do trust you," says Chase, instinctively, though he realizes immediately that it's true. He finds himself appalled by her doubt, by her willingness, still, to take the blame for his reluctance.

"Then what is it?" asks Cameron, searching his face with an intensity that says she still does not absolve herself, does not believe him.

Once again he is reminded of the hurt he has caused her, all under the delusion of protection, of the moral high ground. People don't change, he thinks, House's voice a familiar presence in his memory. But now he finds himself desperate to prove it wrong, feeling as though it might be his final chance at some semblance of the happiness which once seemed firmly within his grasp.

"After my dad left, my mother and my sister needed so much from me, all the time." Chase takes a breath, forcing himself to meet her gaze, acutely aware of the stillness and the silence in this moment. "Eventually I just felt—used up. Empty. I had to leave them, because I had nothing left. All my life—I've never wanted to do that to anyone."

For the moment before she responds, it feels as though the floor might give way from beneath his feet, as though he might be back in that exam room with the world standing still, the scalpel placed this time in her hand.

"I guess I can't blame you," Cameron says at last, very quietly. "I spent three years keeping you at arm's length. Trying to keep it all on my terms. But I meant what I said when I married you. I love you no matter what."

"Still?" asks Chase, breathlessly.

In the bedroom, Sarah begins to cry, waking from her nap. Wordlessly, Cameron takes his hand, squeezes it once, and goes to comfort her daughter.

Chase thinks that he ought to be disappointed, awash in uncertainty. Yet all he feels is a peculiar sense of peace, knowing that her silence is an answer.


	3. Chapter 3

TITLE: Simple Things (3/3)

AUTHOR: enigma731

PAIRING: Chase/Cameron

RATING: T

SUMMARY: The news sits innocuously atop the day's completed reports, two sheets of paper declaring that his world is already shifting on its foundations. Post-finale closure.

_**NOTE: This week is my seventh House fandom anniversary, which feels like an appropriate time to finally say goodbye. If you want updates on future fandom things, you can follow me on tumblr with the same account name. Thank you so, so much to everyone who's stuck by me this long. You have no idea how much I appreciate you.**_

* * *

"Your office is huge," says Chase, from the doorway. "I like it."

Cameron looks up from her computer, surprised to see him. It is the first time he's visited her at work since her return to the hospital, and suddenly nothing else seems as important as his presence here. "Hey. What's up?"

"Have lunch with me," says Chase, taking a step closer to her desk and restlessly picking up a heart-shaped paperweight. It is obvious that there is something more, but he is not going to disclose it yet. "I mean—if you can take a break from whatever you were working on."

"Lesson plans," says Cameron, closing the laptop's lid. "Lunch sounds great."

"I always thought you'd be great at teaching," says Chase, as they step out into the hallway. "But I never thought you'd want to stop seeing patients long enough to do it."

"I still like seeing patients," she answers, noticing once again the subtle shift in his gait, and wondering how much pain he must experience on a daily basis now. She'd grown used to it in House; for Chase, it still seems shocking. "But I also like knowing that I get to go home at five every day, and not be on call."

"Is that why you left emergency medicine?" asks Chase.

Cameron nods. "Didn't give me much time or energy to be a parent."

"I always wanted to have a family with you," says Chase, surprising her again. "I remember being so happy, the first time I found out you wanted kids too. Somehow it never seemed like that would have been a priority for you."

"I'm sorry," says Cameron, stopping short in the middle of the hallway. The intensity of regret shocks her, even now, after being back in Princeton for nearly two months, the echoes of everything she's given up feeling suddenly raw again.

"I didn't say that to hurt you," says Chase, looking pained now as well. "I just—needed you to know."

"I always thought you'd be a great dad," says Cameron, deciding that she does not care what implications he might hear in that statement.

Chase does not respond to that, ducking into the cafeteria without waiting for her to follow. He does not speak again until they are sitting at the table in the corner, where they have had so many conversations before.

"It's weird," says Chase, taking a bite of his sandwich and pausing as though she ought to know exactly what he means.

"What is?"

"I always pictured _you_ as the one who stayed." Chase meets her eyes for a moment, tentatively, then looks back down at his plate. "And here I am."

Cameron sticks her fork into a cherry tomato, watching some of the juice bleed out before responding. "Are you happy with it?"

Chase shrugs, still not ready to truly answer. "After my dad died, a part of me wondered whether I ever would've become a doctor if I wasn't trying to prove something to him."

"And now that House is gone too, you're having an identity crisis."

"Something like that." Chase offers her the ghost of a smile, as though there is some measure of relief in simply speaking the words aloud.

"Should I be concerned?"

"I don't know. I _have_ been thinking of buying a flat screen for the office." Chase quirks an eyebrow to let her know that he is joking, dry humor surprising her after so long.

Quickly, Cameron reaches out and steals a fry off of his plate, eating it as the shock registers on his face. "You should probably let me know if you do that. You're going to need someone to bring the popcorn."

Chase laughs broadly, contagiously, and she thinks that she cannot remember the last time she heard the sound.

* * *

Chase waits outside of Cameron's office, leaning against the wall. House would have stolen a key from Foreman and been waiting behind her desk, he thinks. But he is not House, refuses to become like House, and does not care who sees him here besides. He has spent far too long letting the opinions of others dictate his relationships. Lost too much by being unwilling to risk himself.

Cameron pauses halfway down the hall when she sees him, a slow smile spreading across her face.

"Hey," she says lightly, unlocking the door. "What's up?"

Chase follows her into the room, looking around before responding. Her office is decorated now: diplomas on one wall, a large oil painting of a moonlit garden over the desk. A pile of exams waiting to be graded on the corner of her desk. It's oddly comforting, evidence of all of the things keeping her tethered here now. Keeping her in his life.

"I need your help," he says at last, pulling out the chair on the far side of her desk and sitting in it.

Cameron sits across from him. "What's going on?"

Chase looks down at his hands in his lap, feeling as though speaking the words aloud might somehow make them a reality, as if they are not already. "When I got—attacked—I got a clot in my spine during surgery. Couldn't feel my legs. House figured it out in time, but it took me a few weeks of rehab to get back walking normally."

"Foreman told me," she admits, quietly.

"I guess he would have." He is not sure whether to be angry or relieved that she has stayed in touch with Foreman, has cared enough to ask about his life. "I thought I was over it. But now—" He breaks off, feeling choked by a lifetime of doubt, reservation, following his self-imposed rule to never impose on anyone.

"Tell me," Cameron prompts, gently.

"It hurts," says Chase, forcing the words out. She has begged him to be open with her, to let her help. If he follows his instinct to run now, to withdraw again, he will not get another chance. "My back. And my leg. Sometimes I get spasms. Can't even stand up. They don't last long, but if it happened in front of my team, with a patient—"

"Have you been back to the neurologist?" Cameron interrupts, leaning forward and resting her elbows on her desk.

Chase looks up at last, feeling breathless looking at her now. The intensity of her compassion was what he'd first fallen in love with, all those years ago, but he realizes now that he has never been able to accept it for himself. "No. I haven't had—haven't taken the time. They're gonna tell me I need to go on meds longterm."

"And you don't want that."

"Before, it would've just seemed logical. After House—" Chase shrugs, feeling utterly exposed, vulnerable.

"Why are you telling me?" asks Cameron.

It isn't a challenge, Chase realizes immediately, isn't a doubt. It's an honest question, the diagnostician that still lives in her working to solve the puzzle that is his head.

"Because—Because I'm scared," he answers, searching for the words to communicate all of the multitudinous things he is feeling in this moment. "Because I think I'm realizing that I've got to do it if I want to keep working, and I needed someone to know. Because I needed it to be you. Nobody's ever tried to take care of me like you do, Allison. Nobody."

She regards him in silence for a moment, then reaches out and lays her hand over his on the surface of the desk.

"See if you can get an afternoon appointment," she says, quietly. "I'll come with you."

* * *

By the third time it happens, Cameron is no longer surprised to find Chase standing outside of her office as she returns from her morning class.

"Hey," she offers over her shoulder, as she unlocks the door.

"Eighteen year old kid," says Chase, without any further greeting. "Sudden onset of bizarre stereotyped behavior after the family moved here from Philly two months ago."

"How's your back?" asks Cameron, setting a stack of papers on the edge of her desk to await grading. Immediately she doubts that he's truly come here to talk about the case.

"Kid refuses to eat anything but Cheerios," he answers, without missing a beat. "No milk. Also he has to take everything out of the closet whenever he enters a room, one piece at a time, even if he's done it a dozen times before."

"Has anyone thought to _ask_ him why?" Cameron sits behind her desk, watching him pace restlessly.

"Hasn't spoken since the whole thing started."

"Physical symptoms?"

"None since he had the flu in July, but that was before the psych symptoms started, by a good five weeks."

Cameron sighs. "What does your team think? I'm not a diagnostician anymore."

"I want to know what _you_ think," Chase insists, stubbornly.

"Schizophrenia," she offers, though it's a lame stab at placating him enough to talk candidly; Chase would have gotten such an easy diagnosis without anyone's help. "He's the right age for a first psychotic break. How's your back?"

"Been on antipsychotics for a month, no effect. Guess again."

"No," she refuses firmly, getting to her feet and moving to stand directly in front of him. Chase stops short, mid-pace, barely avoiding colliding with her. "That's not my job anymore. How are _you_ feeling? How was rehab this morning?"

Chase takes a breath; she can see the decision to be honest with her working across his face. "It's a lot better, actually. I just—hate being back to this. I hate making time for rehab. I hate being on steroids."

"But it's a good thing you got the steroids," Cameron reminds him, pointedly. "If you just let the inflammation keep compounding—"

But Chase is not listening anymore, she realizes, the tired frustration of a second before replaced by the look of vacant excitement she's come to recognize in House as the moment of solving the proverbial puzzle.

"Inflammation," Chase repeats, before striding quickly toward the office door. "Thank you."

"Hey, wait!" she calls after him in amused resignation. "What just happened? Did I just become Wilson?"

Chase pauses with his hand on the doorknob, expression shifting into wry humor. "No way. You'd be a lousy oncologist."

Cameron rolls her eyes. "I was going to say I'm lucky you're not an ass, but I think that ship has sailed."

* * *

"We need to talk," says Cameron, after they've finished most of a pizza and a bottle of wine. They are sitting on the couch in her apartment with the television on, what's now become a Friday night ritual. But now there's something in her eyes that makes him catch his breath, a vulnerability which has nothing to do with the alcohol.

This is the moment they have been avoiding since her return, the precipice over which comfortable friendship might become something more, or might fall to ruin. Chase feels his heartbeat pounding in his temples, takes another sip of his drink. He is tired of limbo as well. "I know."

She takes a breath, not looking at him now, and pulls a throw pillow into her lap as though she might be able to use it as a shield. "What happened to us?"

The first thing he wonders is whether this is some sort of test, whether she is looking for proof that he still blames her for everything. Chase is silent for a long moment, searching for the words to everything he feels now, after two years of wondering, of turning the details over and over in his head like a post-mortem. The ultimate case he's never been able to solve.

"I think—maybe it was inevitable," he answers, at last.

Cameron tenses, visibly, and Chase realizes suddenly that what he sees in her eyes is resignation. It isn't a test; she is simply expecting his response to crush her, expecting that this will be the end of everything once more.

"Because we were both afraid of it," he continues, quickly. "The whole time we were together, we were always planning for it to end, planning how to survive when it did. I know you were. I was, too."

"I _was_," she says, quietly, reaching out to set her own wine glass on the edge of the table. "I never realized you were afraid too. You always seemed so sure of it all. I felt like there had to be something wrong with me, that I was never that certain."

"Allison." It seems so simple now, that she wouldn't have known, wouldn't have recognized his fears when she was consumed by her own. He hasn't ever told her, yet he's assumed all along that she _did_ know, that she simply wasn't capable of reassuring him and herself. "My parents' marriage was—the worst thing that ever happened to either of them, I think. All my life, I've never felt good enough for anyone. I knew I'd never be enough for you to stay. But I wanted it anyway. After you left, it was almost—a relief. Not because you were gone, but because I could finally stop wondering when I'd screw it up."

"You are _everything_ I want," says Cameron, then begins to cry. "And I left you. Oh god, I'm sorry."

"Hey." Chase reaches out and wraps his arms around her. "I hurt you too. I don't want you to be sorry. I just—want to be happy. I want that for you too."

"I love you." Her voice is muffled against his shoulder, her fingers twisted in the back of his shirt. "But I still don't know if it could ever work."

Chase kisses her temple gently, pulling away to meet her eyes. "I'll be here when you do."

* * *

A week passes before he runs into Cameron again, as he is on his way into the hospital for the evening, and she's leaving. She has been silent since their dinner, and for a moment he is filled with anxiety, feeling as though he might have made a terrible mistake. But she smiles as soon as she recognizes him, almost as though she's been looking for him here.

"It's Christmas eve," she says, as soon as she's within earshot. Her cheeks are flushed with wind and cold, delicate snowflakes hanging in her hair, perched on her eyelashes. Suddenly Chase feels his breathing quicken, his heart catch in his throat at the memory of that Valentine's morning six years ago, that brief moment which changed his life irrevocably.

"It is." He tries to swallow the overwhelming sense of déjà vu, the unbearable pounding of his heart as he wonders how their conversation will change things once more.

Cameron crosses her arms and puts her back to the chilly wind, but there is laughter in her eyes. "You're really going to work right now?"

Chase shrugs. "Team's gone. No new cases. Good time to catch up on paperwork."

"Wait. Paperwork? Seriously? You're going to work, by choice, on Christmas eve—to do _paperwork_?"

"Yes." In truth it's become a habit, spending holidays at the hospital to avoid the loneliness that seems to haunt his apartment, the ghosts of a thousand regrets which berate him for being too afraid to ever hold on to his own happiness.

"No way." Cameron moves to stand directly in his path, refusing to back down even as he closes the distance between them.

"I need your permission to work overtime?" Chase grins, even as his entire body aches to reach out and touch her, to beg her to make the decision he knows he cannot force.

"There's no such thing as permission to do paperwork on a holiday," she counters.

"Coming from the woman who came in early and stayed late for four years to do House's paperwork." He's treading on dangerous ground, he thinks, yet he cannot resist the urge to tease her, to see her eyes widen in good-natured indignation.

"Play dirty all you want," she challenges, as he's known she would. "I'm not letting you get through that door."

"Then stop me." Chase steps around and past her, hoping she'll do just that, even as he keeps walking.

He's no more than ten feet away from the door when a snowball collides solidly with his shoulder. He freezes, stunned, turning just in time to see her packing a second one between gloved palms. The whole thing is so absurd, so utterly unexpected that Chase finds himself completely unable to react, even as she throws the next one, this time hitting him in the chest.

"_That's_ your plan?" The second impact shatters his surprised stillness, leaving in its wake a rush of adrenaline, a familiar giddiness he has not felt since their relationship was a newly-conceived secret, built on stolen kisses and private corners of the hospital. Bending quickly, he scoops his own handful of snow, pressing it hastily together before hoisting it roughly in Cameron's direction. It's an ill-made missile, and it falls apart in mid-air, but it's enough to make her laugh.

"Hey!" Chase protests as he makes another. "I'm from Australia! I've got zero expertise with snow!"

Cameron ducks his second attempt easily, hitting him in the arm with a snowball of her own at the same time. "You've been living in Princeton for nine years!"

Chase finds himself laughing breathlessly too, the cold air and unexpected exertion a heady rush. His third snowball glances off her shoulder, but he realizes too late that she has been backing him up, and suddenly there's no room between him and the wall next to the hospital entryway. Cameron is standing so close that he can feel the warmth of her breath on his face.

"It's Christmas eve," she repeats, softly.

"Merry Christmas," says Chase, all thoughts of paperwork entirely forgotten.

"Come home with me," she answers.

* * *

"I got you a present," says Cameron, when they've finished the last of the orange chicken, and Sarah is sound asleep, the credits rolling on _It's a Wonderful Life_.

"Yeah?" asks Chase, surprised.

She takes his hand and leads him over to the little Christmas tree in the corner, bending to retrieve a tiny, unwrapped box.

"I'm going to show it to you, and then you can decide whether you want it, okay?" Her fingers shake visibly as she lifts the lid, revealing a newly-cut key.

He knows immediately that it opens the door to her apartment, that it is an invitation to share her life. It feels as though everything goes still, an extraordinary clarity washing over him as he thinks that in the end, truly, it has always come down to this. All the many paths of doubt, fear, mistakes and regrets leading here to another chance.

And it's simple, really, this choice that he's hoped and feared for the space of a lifetime.

"You have always been there for me," she says, breaking the stillness. "You never gave up, even when I wanted to give up on you."

"Because I love you," says Chase, taking the box from her with one hand, and lacing the other with hers. "All my life, I've felt like a mistake. An imposition. But you—you make me feel like I matter. Like it's _okay_ for me to matter. Like I could actually be happy. There is no one else, Allison."

He tastes the salt of his own tears as she kisses him, her arms wrapping around his waist as he brings his free hand up to tangle in her hair.

Many years later, when he has seen three teams of fellows leave and start their own departments, when Sarah is beginning the fifth grade with her brothers close behind, Chase will wonder whether there was ever any other way to end up on this path, in this future which he has been so afraid to imagine for himself. Whether if, at any point, he'd done things just a little differently, they might have ended up somewhere else entirely.

The postcard comes on his tenth anniversary, perfectly timed as though the universe—or someone—has been reading his mind.

_I told you so_, it says, and the familiar scrawl of the writing makes his heart catch in his throat.

* * *

_Goodbye, House fandom! I'd love to have your feedback one last time. _


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